Systems and methods for identifying content corresponding to a language spoken in a household

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for identifying content corresponding to a language are provided. Language spoken by a first user based on verbal input received from the first user is automatically determined with voice recognition circuitry. A database of content sources is cross-referenced to identify a content source associated with a language field value that corresponds to the determined language spoken by the first user. The language field in the database identifies the language that the associated content source transmits content to a plurality of users. A representation of the identified content source is generated for display to the first user.

BACKGROUND

In conventional systems, users have access to a plethora of mediacontent. With so much content available, users often require assistancein selecting content, and content providers often require assistance inselecting what content to provide to users. To aid in selecting content,systems allow users to manually specify preferences such as the languageof the content they desire. Such systems however fail to seamlessly andautomatically derive such preferences, particularly with respect tocontent language, in identifying what content to recommend to a user.

SUMMARY

Accordingly, methods and systems are disclosed herein for identifyingcontent corresponding to a language spoken in a household. In someembodiments, language spoken by a first user based on verbal inputreceived from the first user is automatically determined with voicerecognition circuitry. For example, conversations within a household maybe monitored and processed to determine the language of theconversations. In some implementations, duration of the language spokenmay be measured and stored.

In some embodiments, a database of content sources is cross-referencedto identify a content source associated with a language field value thatcorresponds to the determined language spoken by the first user. Thelanguage field in the database identifies the language that theassociated content source transmits content to a plurality of users.

In some embodiments, a representation of the identified content sourceis generated for display to the first user. In some implementations, therepresentation of the identified content source includes an indicationof the language field associated with the identified content source. Insome implementations, the representation includes a channel name ornumber of the identified content source. In particular, a media guidanceapplication may present an interactive list of all the languages spokenin the household. A user may select a given one of the languages and inresponse the media guidance application may present a list of contentsources (e.g., channels) that transmit content in the selected language.In some embodiments, the list of content sources and/or the list oflanguages may be presented in an overlay on top of content currentlybeing generated for display.

In some embodiments, the list of content sources presented to the userthat transmit content in the language spoken in the household may bebased on the language of the content currently being presented.Specifically, the list of languages spoken in the household that isshown to a user may exclude the language of content currently beingpresented. For example, a user input is received requesting access to agiven content source and a display of content provided by the givencontent source may be generated. A language field associated with thegiven content source may be identified and a determination may be madeas to whether the language spoken by the first user corresponds to avalue of the language field associated with the given content source. Alist of languages may be presented to the user that does not correspondto the value of the language field of the given content source.Similarly, the generated display of the representation of the identifiedcontent source is provided to a display device if the language spoken bythe first user does not correspond to the value of the language fieldassociated with the given content source.

In some embodiments, the language spoken by the first user may be afirst language. A second language spoken by a second user based onverbal input received from the second user may be automaticallydetermined where the second user is in the same household as the firstuser. In some embodiments, the list of languages or content sources maybe based on the language that is most frequently spoken in thehousehold. Specifically, based on the verbal input received with thevoice recognition circuitry over a threshold period of time, adetermination may be made as to whether the second language is spokenmore frequently than the first language. If the second language isdetermined to be spoken more frequently than the first language, thecross-referencing may be performed to identify the content sourceassociated with the language field value that corresponds to the secondlanguage instead of the first language.

In some embodiments, an interactive list representing the first andsecond languages based on the automatic determination of the secondlanguage spoken by the second user may be generated for display. Inputfrom a user selecting the second language from the interactive list maybe received. The cross-referencing may be performed to identify thecontent source associated with the language field value that correspondsto the user-selected second language instead of the first language.

In some embodiments, the list of content sources that transmit contentin the language spoken in the household may be based on a subscriptionplan of the household or user. Specifically, a subscription planassociated with the first user may be retrieved from a storage device. Adetermination may be made as to whether the identified content source,having a language field that corresponds to the language spoken in thehousehold, is included in the retrieved subscription plan prior togenerating for display the representation of the identified contentsource. If the identified content source is not included in thesubscription plan, the database of content sources may becross-referenced to identify a second content source associated with alanguage field value that corresponds to the determined language spokenby the first user. A representation of the identified second contentsource may be generated for display.

In some embodiments, the list of content sources that transmit contentin a language corresponding to the language spoken by the users in thehousehold may be based on popularity of the content sources. In someimplementations, less popular content may be omitted from the display ordisplayed less prominently (e.g., lower in the list) than more popularsources. In particular, the database of content sources may becross-referenced to identify a plurality of content sources associatedwith a respective language field value that corresponds to thedetermined language spoken by the first user. For each of the pluralityof content sources, a popularity value associated with each of theplurality of content source may be identified. Representations of theidentified content sources based on the identified popularity values maybe generated for display.

It should be noted that the systems and/or methods described above maybe applied to, or used in accordance with, other systems, methods and/orapparatuses.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIGS. 1 and 2 show illustrative display screens that may be used toprovide media guidance application listings in accordance with anembodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment device inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIGS. 5 and 6 show illustrative display screens that may be used toidentify content corresponding to a spoken language in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 7A and FIG. 7B are a flow diagram of an illustrative process foridentifying content corresponding to a spoken language in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Methods and systems are disclosed herein for identifying contentcorresponding to a language spoken in a household. In some embodiments,a media guidance application may monitor verbal input from one or moreusers in a household. Families or users often have user equipmentdevices (e.g., set-top boxes) placed throughout the household. Afamily's or user's household even may include multiple homes. Asreferred to herein, the term “household” should be understood to mean ahome or homes associated with a user.

The media guidance application determines a language corresponding tothe verbal input spoken by the one or more users within the household.The media guidance application may cross-reference a database toidentify content sources that transmit content to a plurality of usersin a language corresponding to the language spoken by the one or moreusers. The media guidance application may provide a representation ofthe identified content sources to the user to enable the user to accessthe content source.

With reference to media assets or content, the amount of contentavailable to users in any given content delivery system can besubstantial. Consequently, many users desire a form of media guidancethrough an interface that allows users to efficiently navigate contentselections and easily identify content that they may desire. Anapplication that provides such guidance is referred to herein as aninteractive media guidance application or, sometimes, a media guidanceapplication or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, advertisements, chat sessions, socialmedia, applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded oncomputer-readable media. Computer-readable media includes any media ormedium capable of storing data. The computer-readable media or mediummay be transitory, including, but not limited to, propagating electricalor electromagnetic signals, or may be non-transitory including, but notlimited to, volatile and non-volatile computer memory or storage devicessuch as a hard disk, floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards,register memory, processor caches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, dataused for generating a database of content sources and associatedlanguage fields, phoneme sequences mapping to languages, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), subtitles, media format (e.g., standard definition, highdefinition, 3D, etc.), advertisement information (e.g., text, images,media clips, etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and anyother type of guidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate amongand locate desired content selections.

FIGS. 1 and 2 show illustrative display screens that may be used toprovide media guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 1-2 and5-6 may be implemented on any suitable user equipment device orplatform. While the displays of FIGS. 1-2 and 5-6 are illustrated asfull screen displays, they may also be fully or partially overlaid overcontent being displayed. A user may indicate a desire to access contentinformation by selecting a selectable option provided in a displayscreen (e.g., a menu option, a listings option, an icon, a hyperlink,etc.) or pressing a dedicated button (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remotecontrol or other user input interface or device. In response to theuser's indication, the media guidance application may provide a displayscreen with media guidance data organized in one of several ways, suchas by time and channel in a grid, by time, by channel, by source, bycontent type, by category (e.g., movies, sports, news, children, orother categories of programming), or other predefined, user-defined, orother organization criteria.

FIG. 1 shows illustrative grid program listings display 100 arranged bytime and channel that also enables access to different types of contentin a single display. Display 100 may include grid 102 with: (1) a columnof channel/content type identifiers 104, where each channel/content typeidentifier (which is a cell in the column) identifies a differentchannel or content type available; and (2) a row of time identifiers106, where each time identifier (which is a cell in the row) identifiesa time block of programming. Grid 102 also includes cells of programlistings, such as program listing 108, where each listing provides thetitle of the program provided on the listing's associated channel andtime. With a user input device, a user can select program listings bymoving highlight region 110. Information relating to the program listingselected by highlight region 110 may be provided in program informationregion 112. Region 112 may include, for example, the program title, theprogram description, the time the program is provided (if applicable),the channel the program is on (if applicable), the program's rating, andother desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 102 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 114, recorded content listing 116, andInternet content listing 118. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 100 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings114, 116, and 118 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 102 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 102. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 120. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 120.)

Display 100 may also include video region 122, advertisement 124, andoptions region 126. Video region 122 may allow the user to view and/orpreview programs that are currently available, will be available, orwere available to the user. The content of video region 122 maycorrespond to, or be independent from, one of the listings displayed ingrid 102. Grid displays including a video region are sometimes referredto as picture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and theirfunctionalities are described in greater detail in Satterfield et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat.No. 6,239,794, issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated byreference herein in their entireties. PIG displays may be included inother media guidance application display screens of the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Advertisement 124 may provide an advertisement for content that,depending on a viewer's access rights (e.g., for subscriptionprogramming or subscription plan), is currently available for viewing,will be available for viewing in the future, or may never becomeavailable for viewing, and may correspond to or be unrelated to one ormore of the content listings in grid 102. Advertisement 124 may also befor products or services related or unrelated to the content displayedin grid 102. Advertisement 124 may be selectable and provide furtherinformation about content, provide information about a product or aservice, enable purchasing of content, a product, or a service, providecontent relating to the advertisement, etc. Advertisement 124 may betargeted based on a user's profile/preferences, monitored user activity,language spoken in the household, the type of display provided, or onother suitable targeted advertisement bases.

While advertisement 124 is shown as rectangular or banner shaped,advertisements may be provided in any suitable size, shape, and locationin a guidance application display. For example, advertisement 124 may beprovided as a rectangular shape that is horizontally adjacent to grid102. This is sometimes referred to as a panel advertisement. Inaddition, advertisements may be overlaid over content or a guidanceapplication display or embedded within a display. Advertisements mayalso include text, images, rotating images, video clips, or other typesof content described above. Advertisements may be stored in a userequipment device having a guidance application, in a database connectedto the user equipment, in a remote location (including streaming mediaservers), or on other storage means, or a combination of theselocations. Providing advertisements in a media guidance application isdiscussed in greater detail in, for example, Knudson et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2003/0110499, filed Jan. 17, 2003; Ward, IIIet al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,997, issued Jun. 29, 2004; and Schein et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,388,714, issued May 14, 2002, which are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties. It will beappreciated that advertisements may be included in other media guidanceapplication display screens of the embodiments described herein.

Options region 126 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 126 may be part of display 100 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 126 may concern features related to program listings in grid 102or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting a program and/or channel as a favorite,or purchasing a program, a subtitles setting, or other features. Optionsavailable from a main menu display may include search options, VODoptions, parental control options, Internet options, cloud-basedoptions, device synchronization options, second screen device options,options to access various types of media guidance data displays, optionsto subscribe to a premium service, options to view content correspondingto one or more languages spoken in the household, options to edit auser's profile, options to access a browse overlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 4. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 2. Video mosaic display 200 includes selectable options 202 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. Selection of option 204 may return the user togrid 102 (FIG. 1).

In display 200 listings 206, 208, 210, and 212 may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listings 208, 210 and 212 mayinclude more than one portion, including media portion 214 and textportion 216. Media portion 214 and/or text portion 216 may be selectableto view content in full-screen or to view information related to thecontent displayed in media portion 214 (e.g., to view listings for thechannel that the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 200 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 206 islarger than listings 208, 210, and 212), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Dec. 29, 2005,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 3 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 300. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 4.User equipment device 300 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 302. I/O path 302 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 304, which includesprocessing circuitry 306, detecting circuitry 320 and storage 308.Control circuitry 304 may be used to send and receive commands,requests, and other suitable data using I/O path 302. I/O path 302 mayconnect control circuitry 304 (and specifically processing circuitry306) to one or more communications paths (described below). I/Ofunctions may be provided by one or more of these communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 3 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing.

Control circuitry 304 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 306. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 308). Specifically, control circuitry 304 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 304 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 304 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 304 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 4). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Control circuitry may also instruct detecting circuitry 320, which canbe used to detect and/or identify a user or users without requiring theuser or users to make any affirmative actions by using any suitablebiometric determination technique, such as facial determination,brainwave information, body temperature determination, heart ratedetermination, odor determination, scent determination, body shapedetermination, voice determination, language determination, behavioraldetermination, any other suitable biometric determination technique orany combination thereof.

Detecting circuitry 320 may include monitoring component 316 and powermanagement unit 318. Monitoring component 316 may include one or morecomponents (e.g., an EEG, EMG, pulse oximeter, etc.) for monitoring anactivity type (e.g., biometric state, location, or brainwaveinformation) of a user. As referred to herein, “location” refers to anyrelative or absolute identifier of a position, such as a geographicalcoordinate, vector for direction, street address, name of building, orany other suitable identifier. For example, a location may be indicatedby coordinates in a geographic coordinate system (e.g., latitude orlongitude), or a global positioning system (GPS).

It should be noted, monitoring component 316 may, in some embodiments,be located on a separate device in communication with the device uponwhich a media guidance application (and control circuitry 304) isimplemented. For example, in some embodiments, monitoring component 316may communicate with device 300 via a communications network (e.g.,communications network 414 (FIG. 4)). In some embodiments, monitoringcomponent 316 may be a wearable device (e.g., a wristband, headband,watch, etc.).

Using microphones and voice recognition, control circuitry 304 maydetect or identify users based on the physical characteristics of theirvocal tract through voice recognition, language determination, or voiceidentification. Using a sound source and an array of microphones,control circuitry 304 may determine information about the shape of thearea surrounding the biometric device through acoustic localization,similar to the time-of-flight method described above in reference to IRlight. For example, a sound source may be located near an array ofmicrophones. A sound broadcast from the sound source may propagate as awave front away from the source. As the wave front impacts an object,portions of the wave front may be reflected toward the sound source andarray of microphones. Depending on the position of the object, thereflected sound may arrive at the microphone at different times. Forexample, the reflected sound may arrive at a closer microphone in ashorter amount of time than at a farther microphone. Based on the timeor phase difference in arrival time at various microphones, total traveltime of the sound, and positions of the microphones, it may be possibleto generate a spatial areal map. Locations of objects may be determinedbased on the spatial areal map generated via acoustic localization, IRtime of flight, any other suitable mapping method, or any combinationthereof. It should be understood that various biometric techniques anddevices may be used alone or in combination to supplement each other tomore accurately identify or detect users.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may respond toverbal commands or verbal input received from a user. Control circuitry304 may include a voice recognition engine or circuitry with a phonemeencoder to process verbal input from a user. In some implementations,the human language sounds (e.g., utterances) may be received with one ormore microphones and provided to the phoneme encoder of controlcircuitry 304. The phoneme encoder may convert the sounds into machinerepresentations of the sounds using a phoneme representation. In oneembodiment, the machine representations may be viewed as AmericanStandard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) representations of thephonemes, or the like, viewable as a sequence of alpha-numeric values.In one embodiment, the machine representations may employ symbols fromthe International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and/or extended sets adaptedfor use within a computer device.

As used herein, the term “phoneme” refers to a physical representationof a human language sound or utterance. Moreover, a phoneme is arepresentation of a sound of a language independent of its position in aword or phrase. Thus, phonemes represent sounds in the most neutral formpossible. A variety of written representations of phonemes are known inthe art, and, as such, virtually any representation may be used by thepresent disclosure. For example, in one embodiment, the phonemes may berepresented by alpha-numeric symbols such as employed in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), American Standard Code forInformation Interchange (ASCII) format, or the like. However, as noted,the disclosure is not limited to this mechanism, and others may be used.As used herein, the term “word” refers to a single distinct meaningfulelement of speech or writing that matches one or more phoneme sequences.

Control circuitry 304 may cross-reference a detected phoneme sequencewith a database (not shown) that maps each phoneme sequence to acorresponding language. The process of cross-referencing phonemesequences with database may be used to determine a language associatedwith a received plurality of utterances from a user. After theutterances are mapped to their corresponding language, the output may beprovided to the media guidance application for further processing. Forexample, the media guidance application may process the identifiedlanguage (corresponding to the received utterances) to generaterecommendations, generate for display representations of content sourcesthat transmit content to a plurality of users in a languagecorresponding to the identified language, cross-reference a database ofcontent sources to which the user subscribes to identify a contentsource associated with a language field corresponding to the identifiedlanguage, advertisements, perform search queries, load websites, orperform any other command that corresponds to the identified language.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may receive verbal input fromthe user that includes a plurality of utterances. Each utterance maycorrespond to a particular word spoken by the user. Typically, theutterances are separated from each other by a brief moment of silence.In response to receiving the utterances, control circuitry 304 mayencode the utterances into phoneme sequences. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may encode each utterance using IPA or some otherequivalent digital representation. Control circuitry 304 may store eachphoneme sequence using IPA in storage 308. Besides using IPA phoneticencoding, any other type of phonetic encoding or representation systemcan be used (e.g., SAMPA, X-SAMPA, Arpabet, extIPA, Kirshenbaum, etc.).

Control circuitry 304 may cross-reference the stored IPA for eachutterance with the phoneme database to identify the correspondinglanguage. The database may be a local database or remote database. Whenthe database is remote, control circuitry 304 may communicate thephoneme sequence or IPA to a server, which may then return to controlcircuitry 304 the corresponding language matching the phoneme sequence.

Control circuitry 304 may continuously or periodically monitor verbalinput received from the microphone to determine the correspondinglanguage. Control circuitry 304 may measure duration of the verbal inputcorresponding to a given language. Control circuitry 304 may store instorage 308 a list of all the different languages received over a giveninterval (e.g., lifetime, several days or months). In addition, controlcircuitry 304 may indicate for each language a total duration of theverbal input. Accordingly, storage 308 may identify for a givenhousehold (e.g., a home of a user) how often one language is spokenrelative to another. Namely, a first language stored in storage 308 witha first duration that is larger than a second duration of a secondlanguage stored in storage 308 may indicate that the first language isspoken in the household more often than the second language.

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 308 thatis part of control circuitry 304. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 308 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. For example, storage 308 may be used tostore the phoneme database that associates phonemes with languages. Thephoneme database may include multiple entries. Each entry may include aphoneme sequence field and a corresponding language field. The phonemesequence field may identify a set of phonemes that represent a receivedutterance, and the language field may identify the language that matchesthe phoneme sequence. Nonvolatile memory may also be used (e.g., tolaunch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-based storage,described in relation to FIG. 4, may be used to supplement storage 308or instead of storage 308.

Control circuitry 304 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 304 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 300. Circuitry 304 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 308 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 300, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 308.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 304 using user inputinterface 310. User input interface 310 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, microphone, or other user input interfaces. Display 312 maybe provided as a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements ofuser equipment device 300. For example, display 312 may be a touchscreenor touch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface312 may be integrated with or combined with display 312. Display 312 maybe one or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display(LCD) for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperaturepoly silicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display,active matrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display,cathode ray tube display, light-emitting diode display,electroluminescent display, plasma display panel, high-performanceaddressing display, thin-film transistor display, organic light-emittingdiode display, surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), lasertelevision, carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometricmodulator display, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visualimages. In some embodiments, display 312 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 312 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 312.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry304. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 304.Speakers 314 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 300 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 312 may be played throughspeakers 314. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers314.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone application whollyimplemented on user equipment device 300. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage308), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 304 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 308 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 304 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 310. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 310 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 300 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 300. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 304 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 300. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 300.Equipment device 300 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 310 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 300 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 310.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 300 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 304). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 304 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 304. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 304. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 300 of FIG. 3 can be implemented in system 400 ofFIG. 4 as user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404,wireless user communications device 406, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device (e.g., and maycollectively be part of a household) or may be part of a network ofdevices. Various network configurations of devices may be implementedand are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 3 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, or awireless user communications device 406. For example, user televisionequipment 402 may, like some user computer equipment 404, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 404 may, like some television equipment 402, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 404, theguidance application may be provided as a website accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 406.

In system 400, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 4 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 402, user computer equipment 404, wireless user communicationsdevice 406) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” The contentpresented on the second screen device may be any suitable content thatsupplements the content presented on the first device. In someembodiments, the second screen device provides an interface foradjusting settings and display preferences of the first device. In someembodiments, the second screen device is configured for interacting withother second screen devices or for interacting with a social network.The second screen device can be located in the same room as the firstdevice, a different room from the first device but in the same house orbuilding, or in a different building from the first device. In someembodiments, the second screen device may provide verbal input to thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device may be athin client that cannot perform voice recognition or ASR but simplysends received utterances from a user to the first device. The firstdevice may include the capability to perform ASR on the utterancesreceived with the second screen device. In such cases, the first devicemay be a local or remote server. In some embodiments, the second screendevice may include full capability to perform ASR on a receivedutterance and may transmit (if necessary) the corresponding language tothe first device for further processing.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences,language, and other desirable guidance settings. For example, if a usersets a channel as a favorite on, for example, the web sitewww.allrovi.com on their personal computer at their office, the samechannel would appear as a favorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g.,user television equipment and user computer equipment) as well as theuser's mobile devices, if desired. Therefore, changes made on one userequipment device can change the guidance experience on another userequipment device, regardless of whether they are the same or a differenttype of user equipment device. In addition, the changes made may bebased on settings input by a user, as well as user activity monitored bythe guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 414.Namely, user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, andwireless user communications device 406 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 414 via communications paths 408, 410, and 412, respectively.Communications network 414 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G, XLTE, and/or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephonenetwork, or other types of communications network or combinations ofcommunications networks. Paths 408, 410, and 412 may separately ortogether include one or more communications paths, such as, a satellitepath, a fiber-optic path, a cable path, a path that supports Internetcommunications (e.g., IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcastor other wireless signals), or any other suitable wired or wirelesscommunications path or combination of such paths. Path 412 is drawn withdotted lines to indicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG.4 it is a wireless path and paths 408 and 410 are drawn as solid linesto indicate they are wired paths (although these paths may be wirelesspaths, if desired). Communications with the user equipment devices maybe provided by one or more of these communications paths, but are shownas a single path in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 408, 410, and 412, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 414.

System 400 includes content source 416 and media guidance data source418 coupled to communications network 414 via communication paths 420and 422, respectively. Paths 420 and 422 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 408, 410,and 412. Communications with the content source 416 and media guidancedata source 418 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 416 and media guidance data source 418, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 416 and media guidance data source 418 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 416 and 418 withuser equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 are shown as throughcommunications network 414, in some embodiments, sources 416 and 418 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 408, 410, and 412.

Content source 416 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 416 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 416 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 416 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 418 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 418may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 418 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 418 mayprovide user equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 308, and executedby control circuitry 304 of a user equipment device 300. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 304 of user equipment device 300and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 418) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 418), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 418 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and process verbal input.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices402, 404, and 406 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 400 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 4.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 414.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/179,410, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 416 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 402 and user computer equipment 404may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 406 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 414. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 416 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 418. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, and wirelessuser communications device 406. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 404 or wireless usercommunications device 406 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 404. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 414. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 3.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may process thelanguages stored in storage 308 to identify content corresponding to thelanguages. For example, the media guidance application may identify allthe languages spoken in the household within a given time frame. Themedia guidance application may search for content and/or content sourcesthat include content in the language or languages spoken in thehousehold. The media guidance application may present contentcorresponding to the language spoken in the household based on userselection of a given one of the languages or automatically based on thelanguage that is spoken most frequently in the household.

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative display screen 500 that may be used toidentify content corresponding to a spoken language in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. Screen 500 includes a media asset510 currently being accessed by user equipment 300 and an overlay 520 ofspoken languages in the household.

The media guidance application may receive a user request to view a listof languages spoken in the household. In response to the user request,the media guidance application may retrieve from storage 308 a list oflanguages spoken in the household. The media guidance application maysort the list based on how frequently the language is spoken.Specifically, the media guidance application may sort the list oflanguages based on the corresponding duration field. As a result, thelanguage that is spoken most frequently or with the greatest durationmay be placed at the top of the list. The media guidance application maypresent the list of languages as an interactive list of languages 522.

For example, the media guidance application may determine that threedifferent languages are spoken over time in the household and,accordingly, display representations in interactive list of languages522 of all three languages. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may retrieve a language field of media asset 510 currentlybeing presented. For example, the media guidance application mayretrieve from the media guidance data associated with media asset 510 anindication that media asset 510 is being received and presented in afirst language (e.g., English). The media guidance application maydetermine whether the first language is included in the list oflanguages spoken in the household. In response to determining that thefirst language is included in the list of languages spoken in thehousehold, the media guidance application may exclude the first languagefrom the list of languages presented to the user in overlay 520. Thisallows the user to select a language that is different from the languageof currently received content and that is a language spoken in thehousehold.

The process for determining languages spoken in the household may beperformed based on control circuitry 304 processing verbal input fromone or more users over time (e.g., lifetime, weeks, months, years,etc.). Control circuitry 304 may process phonemes of the verbal input toidentify the corresponding language and duration of the verbal input.Control circuitry 304 may store the language and the duration in thelist of languages stored in storage 304. In some implementations, if agiven language is already included in the list of languages stored instorage 308, control circuitry 304 may increment the correspondingduration field of the language by the most recently computed duration.

For example, if three languages (e.g., Hindi, Spanish and French) arespoken interchangeably in the household, control circuitry 304 mayinitially have a language and duration for all three languages. If atsome later point in time, verbal input from a user is received anddetermined to correspond to one of the previously determined languages(e.g., Hindi), control circuitry 304 may compute the duration of themost recent verbal input and increment the duration of the previouslystored language by the most recently computed amount. Specifically, thelanguage Hindi may be associated with a duration of 35 minutes. Mostrecently, control circuitry 304 may determine that verbal input having aduration of five minutes and corresponding to the language Hindi wasreceived. As a result, control circuitry 304 may increment the durationof the language Hindi in storage 308 to 40 minutes.

The media guidance application may receive a user selection of one ofthe languages in interactive list 522. For example, the user mayphysically tap a given language displayed in list 522 on the display.The media guidance application may then select the languagecorresponding to the region where the user has tapped the list.Alternatively, a highlight region or cursor (not shown) may be presentedon a given language in list 522. In response to receiving a user commandto move the highlight region (e.g., up or down), the media guidanceapplication may navigate the highlight region (or cursor) in theindicated direction to highlight another language (e.g., Hindi) in list522. When the user selects the OK button (e.g., on a remote control),the media guidance application may receive a user selection of thehighlighted language in list 522. In response to receiving a userselection of a given language in list 522, the media guidanceapplication may present a list of content or content sources thatcorrespond to the selected language.

FIG. 6 shows an illustrative display screen 600 that may be used toidentify content corresponding to a spoken language in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. Screen 600 includes media asset 510currently being accessed by user equipment 300 and an overlay 610 ofcontent corresponding to a selected one of the spoken languages in thehousehold.

The media guidance application may search language fields in a contentsource database to identify content sources having a language field thatcorresponds to the user-selected language. Specifically, the mediaguidance application may store the language selected by the user inresponse to receiving the user selection of the language from list 522(FIG. 5). The media guidance application may cross-reference the storedlanguage selected by the user with the content source database toidentify content sources associated with a language field thatcorresponds to the user selection. For example, the media guidanceapplication may cross-reference the stored language selected by the userwith the content source database to identify content sources associatedwith a language field value that is the same as the user-selectedlanguage. The language field for each content source stored in thedatabase may indicate the language of the content provided by thecontent source. In some embodiments, content sources may provide contentover time in multiple languages (e.g., Spanish in the morning andEnglish in the evening). In such circumstances, the language field mayinclude both languages with an indication of when the content isprovided in the corresponding language. The media guidance applicationmay use a current time to determine whether the language fieldassociated with the current time for a given content source correspondsto the user-selected language. The media guidance application maygenerate and store a list of content sources having a language fieldthat corresponds to the user-selected language.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may retrieve asubscription plan associated with the household or user. The mediaguidance application may select a portion of the content sources storedin the list based on the subscription plan associated with the householdor user. For example, the media guidance application may exclude fromthe stored content source list any content source that is not alsoincluded in the user's or household's subscription plan. Alternatively,the media guidance application may exclude from the stored contentsource list any content source that is also included in the user's orhousehold's subscription plan. For example, the media guidanceapplication may advertise content sources that have language fieldscorresponding to the user-selected language and which the user is notsubscribed to.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may retrieve apopularity value associated with each content source that is stored inthe list. The media guidance application may select a portion of thecontent sources stored in the list based on the popularity valueassociated with each content source. For example, the media guidanceapplication may exclude from the stored content source list any contentsource that has a popularity value that is less than a predeterminedthreshold. Alternatively, the media guidance application may excludefrom the stored content source list any content source that has apopularity value that exceeds a predetermined threshold. The mediaguidance application may sort the list of content sources based onpopularity values associated with the content sources. For example,content sources associated with a higher popularity value may be placedat the top of the list while content sources associated with a lowerpopularity value may be placed at the bottom of the list.

Overlay 610 may indicate to the user which language the user-selected(e.g., from screen 500). Overlay 610 may include a content source regionand a current program region 620. The content source region may includecontent source logo 612 and content source name 614. The content sourceregion may be populated by the media guidance application based on theresults of cross-referencing or searching the database for contentsources having language fields corresponding to the user-selectedlanguage. Specifically, the content source region may be populated bythe media guidance application using the stored and/or sorted list ofcontent sources. The content sources in the content source region mayinclude an indication of whether the corresponding content source is inthe subscription plan associated with the household or user. In someimplementations, the indication may include a cost associated withaccessing the content source if the content source is not included inthe subscription plan associated with the household or user. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may visually distinguishcontent sources in the content source region that are included in thesubscription plan associated with the household or user from contentsources in the content source region that are not included in thesubscription plan associated with the household or user.

Current program region 620 may include a name of the media assetcurrently being transmitted to a plurality of users (e.g., broadcast).The content source region and current program region 620 may beinteractive to allow a user to select a given content source or programto access the content source or program. The media guidance applicationmay receive a user input (e.g., a selection of a down arrow key). Inresponse, the media guidance application may navigate a cursor from onecontent source to another (e.g., from the content source “Colors” to thecontent source “Starplus”). The media guidance application may receive auser selection of the “OK” button to select a given content sourcehighlighted by the cursor. In response, the media guidance applicationmay access the selected content source (e.g., tune to the respectivechannel) and present the content currently being transmitted by thatcontent source to the user.

In some implementations, the media guidance application may receive auser request or input to navigate the cursor to current program region620. In response, the media guidance application may navigate the cursorfrom highlighting a given content source to the corresponding programlisting presented in region 620. The media guidance application mayreceive a user selection of the program listing. In response, the mediaguidance application may provide additional information about thecorresponding media asset. Alternatively, the media guidance applicationmay access the corresponding media asset in response to the userselecting the program listing.

FIGS. 7A and 7B are a flow diagram of an illustrative process 700 foridentifying content corresponding to a spoken language in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. At step 710, verbal input isreceived from a user in a household. For example, the media guidanceapplication may monitor continuously or periodically conversationsbetween users to receive the verbal input from the users in thehousehold. The media guidance application may receive a trigger eachtime the voice recognition engine of control circuitry 304 detects avoice from a user to receive the verbal input.

At step 720, the verbal input is processed to determine a languagespoken by the user. For example, the media guidance application maygenerate phonemes representing the verbal input received from the userand cross-reference the generated phonemes with a phoneme database todetermine a language corresponding to the received verbal input. Themedia guidance application may store the language in a list in storage308.

At step 730, a value representing how long the determined language wasspoken in the household is stored. The media guidance application maymeasure duration of the verbal input that represents how often thatlanguage is spoken in the household. The media guidance application mayincrement any previously stored duration value for the associatedlanguage by the most recently measured duration.

At step 740, a determination is made as to whether additional verbalinput was received. In response to determining that additional verbalinput was received, the process proceeds to step 720; otherwise, theprocess proceeds to step 742.

At step 742, one or more languages spoken in the household areidentified. For example, the media guidance application may retrievefrom storage 308 a list of all the languages spoken in the household.The media guidance application may automatically identify one of thelanguages having the largest duration value, which may indicate that theidentified language is the most spoken language in the household.Alternatively, the media guidance application may present interactivelist 522 of all spoken languages in the household to the user (FIG. 5).The media guidance application may receive a user input selecting one ofthe languages in list 522 as the identified language.

At step 750, a subscription plan associated with the household isidentified. For example, the media guidance application may retrievefrom storage 308 a subscription plan of the household or user thatincludes a list of all the content sources to which the household oruser subscribes.

At step 760, associated language field values that identify the languagethat the associated content source transmits content to a plurality ofusers are retrieved from a database of a list of content sources.

At step 770, a next content source is selected from the list of contentsources. For example, the media guidance application may process eachcontent source stored in the database starting with the first contentsource.

At step 780, a determination is made as to whether the language fieldvalue of the selected content source corresponds to one of the one ormore languages spoken in the household. For example, the media guidanceapplication may compare the value of the language field for the selectedcontent source to the identified language and determine whether theycorrespond to the same language. In response to determining that thelanguage field value of the selected content source corresponds to oneof the one or more languages spoken in the household, the processproceeds to step 781; otherwise the process proceeds to step 790.

At step 781, a determination is made as to whether the selected contentsource is included in the identified subscription plan. In response todetermining that the selected content source is included in theidentified subscription plan, the process proceeds to step 782;otherwise the process proceeds to step 784.

At step 782, a representation of the selected content source is storedin a list of content sources matching a given language spoken in thehousehold with an indication that the source is included in theidentified subscription plan.

At step 784, a representation of the selected content source is storedin a list of content sources matching a given language spoken in thehousehold with an indication that the source is not included in theidentified subscription plan.

At step 790, a determination is made as to whether additional contentsources remain. In response to determining that additional contentsources remain, the process proceeds to step 770; otherwise the processproceeds to step 792.

At step 792, a representation of the content sources stored in the listof content sources matching a given language spoken in the household isgenerated for display. For example, the media guidance application mayselect representations of those content sources stored in the list ofcontent sources that are included in the user's or householdsubscription plan. Alternatively or in addition, the media guidanceapplication may select representations of those content sources storedin the list of content sources that are not included in the user's orhousehold subscription plan (e.g., in order to promote or advertisecontent sources to which the user or household does not subscribe butthat match an identified language spoken in the household). The mediaguidance application may present overlay 610, which includes a contentsources region and program region 620 with the selected representationsof content sources (FIG. 6). The media guidance application may receivea user selection of one of the content sources or programs in overlay610 and access the corresponding source.

The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure are presentedfor purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the presentdisclosure is limited only by the claims that follow. Furthermore, itshould be noted that the features and limitations described in any oneembodiment may be applied to any other embodiment herein, and flowchartsor examples relating to one embodiment may be combined with any otherembodiment in a suitable manner, done in different orders, or done inparallel. Furthermore, as referred herein, the term “in response to”refers to initiated as a result of. For example, a first action beingperformed in response to another action may include interstitial stepsbetween the first action and the second action. As referred herein, theterm “directly in response to” refers to caused by. For example, a firstaction being performed directly in response to another action may notinclude interstitial steps between the first action and the secondaction. In addition, the systems and methods described herein may beperformed in real time. It should also be noted, the systems and/ormethods described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems and/or methods.

1.-50. (canceled)
 51. A method for identifying content corresponding toa language, the method comprising: receiving a plurality of verbalinputs over a time period; automatically determining, using voicerecognition circuitry, respective languages of the plurality of verbalinputs; determining, for each of the respective languages, an aggregateduration of the plurality of verbal inputs received over the time periodthat correspond to the language; identifying a language spoken mostoften, based on the determined aggregate durations; and in response toidentifying the language spoken most often: identifying content in theidentified language; and generating for display a representation of theidentified content.
 52. The method of claim 51, further comprising: inresponse to identifying the language spoken most often: searching adatabase of content sources to identify a content source that transmitsthe content in the identified language; and generating for display arepresentation of the identified content source.
 53. The method of claim51, further comprising storing the determined aggregate durations in amemory in association with the languages, respectively.
 54. The methodof claim 53, further comprising: for at least one of the languages,determining an updated aggregate duration of verbal inputs received thatcorrespond to the language; and storing the updated aggregate durationin association with the language in the memory by overwriting theaggregate duration stored in association with the language.
 55. Themethod of claim 54, further comprising: identifying that the languagespoken most often has changed to the language that corresponds to theupdated aggregate duration; and in response to identifying that thelanguage spoken most often has changed to the language that correspondsto the updated aggregate duration: identifying updated content in thelanguage that corresponds to the updated aggregate duration; andgenerating for display a representation of the identified updatedcontent.
 56. The method of claim 51, further comprising: generating fordisplay an interactive list representing the automatically determinedrespective languages; receiving an input selecting a language from theinteractive list; and identifying content associated with a languagefield value that corresponds to the selected language instead of thelanguage spoken most often.
 57. The method of claim 51, wherein theidentifying the language spoken most often comprises determining agreatest aggregate duration among the determined aggregate durations.58. The method of claim 52, wherein the representation of the identifiedcontent source includes a channel name or number of the identifiedcontent source.
 59. The method of claim 52, wherein the representationof the identified content source is included in an overlay on top ofcontent currently being generated for display.
 60. The method of claim52, further comprising: retrieving a subscription plan from a storagedevice; determining that the identified content source that transmitslanguage content in the language spoken most often is not included inthe retrieved subscription plan prior to generating for display therepresentation of the identified content source; cross-referencing thedatabase of content sources to identify a second content sourceassociated with a language field value that corresponds to the languagespoken most often; and generating for display a representation of theidentified second content source.
 61. A system for identifying contentcorresponding to a language, the system comprising: control circuitry;and voice recognition circuitry, wherein the control circuitry isconfigured to receive a plurality of verbal inputs over a time period,wherein the voice recognition circuitry is configured to automaticallydetermine respective languages of the plurality of verbal inputs, andwherein the control circuitry is further configured to: determine, foreach of the respective languages, an aggregate duration of the pluralityof verbal inputs received over the time period that correspond to thelanguage; identify a language spoken most often, based on the determinedaggregate durations; and in response to identifying the language spokenmost often: identify content in the identified language; and generatefor display a representation of the identified content.
 62. The systemof claim 61, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: inresponse to identifying the language spoken most often: identify acontent source that transmits content in the identified language, andgenerate for display a representation of the identified content source.63. The system of claim 61, further comprising storage circuitry,wherein the storage circuitry is configured to store the determinedaggregate durations in association with the languages, respectively. 64.The system of claim 63, wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured to, for at least one of the languages, determine an updatedaggregate duration of verbal inputs received that correspond to thelanguage, and wherein the storage circuitry is further configured tostore the updated aggregate duration in association with the language byoverwriting the aggregate duration stored in association with thelanguage.
 65. The system of claim 64, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured to: identify that the language spoken most often haschanged to the language that corresponds to the updated aggregateduration; and in response to identifying that the language spoken mostoften has changed to the language that corresponds to the updatedaggregate duration: identify updated content in the language thatcorresponds to the updated aggregate duration; and generate for displaya representation of the identified updated content.
 66. The system ofclaim 61, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:generate for display an interactive list representing the automaticallydetermined respective languages; receive an input selecting a languagefrom the interactive list; and identify content associated with alanguage field value that corresponds to the selected language insteadof the language spoken most often.
 67. The system of claim 61, whereinthe control circuitry is further configured to identify the languagespoken most often by determining a greatest aggregate duration among thedetermined aggregate durations.
 68. The system of claim 62, wherein therepresentation of the identified content source includes a channel nameor number of the identified content source.
 69. The system of claim 62,wherein the representation of the identified content source is includedin an overlay on top of content currently being generated for display.70. The system of claim 62, further comprising storage circuitry,wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: retrieve asubscription plan from the storage circuitry; determine that theidentified content source that transmits language content in thelanguage spoken most often is not included in the retrieved subscriptionplan prior to generating for display the representation of theidentified content source; cross-reference the database of contentsources to identify a second content source associated with a languagefield value that corresponds to the language spoken most often; andgenerate for display a representation of the identified second contentsource.